The field of the disclosure relates generally to power electronics, and more particularly, to magnetic devices having integrated current sensing elements.
Power electronics systems generally include a printed circuit board and a plurality of electrical components mounted to the printed circuit board to establish an electrical connection between the electrical components. Measuring and monitoring the current flowing through electrical components in power electronic systems is important to prevent overloading, and possibly damaging, the electrical components. Further, as the demand for higher power density electronics systems increases, it becomes increasingly important to utilize board space efficiently.
At least some known devices for measuring current in power electronics systems require a relatively large amount of board space and/or require complex, often costly circuitry to obtain accurate current measurements. For example, some known current sensing devices include discrete current sense resistors mounted to a printed circuit board separate from other electrical components.
Other known current sensing devices utilize four-point terminal measurements on the windings of an electrical component to measure the current flowing through the electrical component. However, such current sensing devices generally require windings having a low thermal coefficient of resistivity and, consequently, a relatively high resistivity. The windings of such electrical components have relatively large cross-sectional areas to compensate for the increased resistance in the windings, and, as a result, such electrical components are typically larger than conventional electrical components.
Yet other known current sensing devices utilize discrete or dedicated current sensing circuitry to measure current flowing through one or more electrical components. Such current sensing circuitry generally requires additional board space and/or requires additional cost to implement into an electronics system. Moreover, the accuracy of such current sensing circuitry is susceptible to temperature changes in the electrical components.